Recent posts on sustainability integration

Reading Joe Nocera’s op-ed in Friday’s New York Times, “Down with Shareholder Value,” I felt compelled to respond. Nocera writes:
Over time, “maximizing shareholder value” became viewed as the primary task of the corporation. And, well, you can see the results all around you. They’re not pretty. Too many chief executives succumb to the pressure to boost short-term earnings at the expense of long-term value creation.
Nocera goes on to describe the emergence of a “new movement” that gives greater weight to long-term considerations and social purpose. But the movement is not new; it has is roots in sustainability, a decades-old concept whose underpinning is the creation of value for all stakeholders—not shareholders alone.

The business schools actually came late to the party, espousing what many had long been advocating: the idea that integrating sustainability principles into corporate strategy and implementing them in operations is a driver of business… More >

Framework’s Selected 2012 Trends
What individuals and companies are focusing on this year

Part one of a series on 2012 trends

As part of Framework’s ongoing effort to keep clients abreast of the emerging issues in managing for sustainability, we compiled a list of developments and issues to follow in 2012. While some are client-specific and can’t be shared, several deal with sustainable business practices more generally. So we decided to share our perspective on what individuals and companies will think about, talk about, and work on this year.

It’s impossible to ever provide a complete list, of course. We are sharing the ideas that we find interesting because they are either:

on the verge of reaching the tipping point to mainstream implementation, or
on the opposite end of the spectrum and just beginning to enter larger public awareness and conversations.

We’ll present one or two topics at a time over the next week, and with… More >

In the previous segment of our materiality blog series, we analyzed GRI reporting criteria to determine whether materiality analysis is truly an integral component of a report based on the GRI G3 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. We found that while the language in the GRI Guidelines strongly encourages the use of materiality, there is no formal requirement for companies to follow any particular analysis process.

Extending our inquiry, we reached out to sustainability professionals at companies currently using the GRI Guidelines—hoping to better understand the perceived role of materiality analysis within corporations themselves.

A powerful tool

In speaking with best-practice leaders, including representatives from Timberland, EMC, and Intel, we posed the following questions:

Have you conducted a materiality analysis within your company? If so, how?
Do you believe that materiality analysis has… More >

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